Different types of systems and procedures are available for collecting or retrieving information from a device or a user of a device. The collected information may be used to analyze system performance, identify existing problems, or identify potential problems. If a problem or potential problem is identified, a user or administrator of the system is notified of the problem and can take an appropriate action.
Existing procedures for collecting or retrieving information are typically contained in a software application or a built-in diagnostic routine that performs one or more procedures to monitor specific portions of a system. Generally, these procedures are included in a single application or a diagnostic routine that retrieves information about the system and analyzes the retrieved information. Therefore, these procedures retrieve a particular set of information and perform a particular analysis on the information.
These existing applications or diagnostic routines are not easily modified if a user or administrator wants to change the information retrieved or change the analysis performed on the retrieved information. To make such a change requires modifying the application source code or modifying the built-in diagnostic routine, both of which can be complicated and time-consuming.
Additionally, many existing applications are invoked and operated by a user of the system. Instead of running automatically or running in a "background" mode, these applications are executed at the direction of the user. Thus, to retrieve data about the system using this type of application, the user must install the application and know how to operate and command the application. If the application is used infrequently (e.g., only when a problem occurs), the user is not likely to be proficient when operating the application. In this situation, the user may need to re-learn the operation of the application before retrieving and analyzing data about the system.
It is therefore desirable to provide a system that collects information automatically while requiring minimal interaction with the user of the system. Additionally, it is desirable to provide an information collection system that is easily modified to collect different types of data and perform different operations on the collected data.